Polar vs Paddle Fees, Flat Rate or Volume Ladder
Polar and Paddle both start at 5% + 50¢. Polar's paid plans cut the rate to 3.4% + 30¢, but Paddle never changes. See where each wins by volume and geography.
Polar.sh breakdown
- Base fee (5% + 50¢) $5.50
Paddle breakdown
- Base fee (5% + 50¢) $5.50
The ranking counts per-transaction cost only. Monthly plan fees, payout fees, and dispute fees are listed separately on each platform page. Rates are verified against official pricing pages, and the sources list the dates.
Every Polar.sh vs Paddle fee side by side
| Polar.sh | Paddle | |
|---|---|---|
| Base transaction fee | Starter (free) 5% + 50¢ Pro ($20/mo) 3.8% + 40¢ Growth ($100/mo) 3.6% + 35¢ Scale ($400/mo) 3.4% + 30¢ | 5% + 50¢ |
| International cards | +1.5% | No surcharge |
| Currency conversion | No surcharge | No surcharge |
| Subscription billing | Included | Included |
| PayPal | Not offered | Included |
| Monthly fee | Varies by plan ($0–$400/mo) | None |
| Payout fees | $2/month with payouts + 0.25% + 25¢ per payout (0.25–1% FX on non-USD payouts) | Free payouts. An FX margin of roughly 1.5–3% applies when your payout currency differs from the sale currency ($15 SWIFT wire fee for some currency/bank combinations) |
| Dispute / chargeback fee | $15.00 | Chargeback fees absorbed by Paddle |
| Sales tax / VAT handling | MoR Polar handles global sales tax and VAT as the legal seller | MoR Paddle handles global sales tax and VAT as the legal seller |
| Source | Official pricing, last verified 2026-07-10 (Plans introduced May 2026. Grandfathered Early Member orgs pay 4% + 40¢ + 0.5% on subscriptions) | Official pricing, last verified 2026-07-10 |
| Platform | $10 sale | $50 sale | $500 sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polar.sh | $1.00 | $3.00 | $25.50 |
| Paddle | $1.00 | $3.00 | $25.50 |
One rate forever, or four rates by commitment
Paddle’s price sheet has a single row, 5% + 50¢ at any volume, with processing, billing, tax remittance, and chargeback liability all inside it. Polar’s sheet, rewritten in May 2026, is a menu, and the international surcharge splits every option in two.
| Plan | Monthly fee | Domestic rate | International rate | $50 domestic | $50 international |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paddle | $0 | 5% + 50¢ | 5% + 50¢ | $3.00 | $3.00 |
| Polar Starter | $0 | 5% + 50¢ | 6.5% + 50¢ | $3.00 | $3.75 |
| Polar Pro | $20 | 3.8% + 40¢ | 5.3% + 40¢ | $2.30 | $3.05 |
| Polar Growth | $100 | 3.6% + 35¢ | 5.1% + 35¢ | $2.15 | $2.90 |
| Polar Scale | $400 | 3.4% + 30¢ | 4.9% + 30¢ | $2.00 | $2.75 |
Read down the domestic column and Polar’s paid tiers pull away from Paddle by 70¢, 85¢, and $1.00 per $50 sale. Read down the international column and the 1.5% surcharge hands most of it back.
What each tier has to earn back
Pro saves 70¢ per $50 domestic sale against Paddle, so 29 sales (about $1,430 in monthly volume) cover its $20 fee on checkout math alone. Add Polar’s payout charges ($2 a month plus 0.25% and 25¢ per payout, against a USD Paddle payout that converts nothing) and the crossover drifts toward $1,700 and beyond. The same arithmetic lands Growth near $7,000 a month and Scale near $23,000. Past those lines the savings scale. A $50,000 domestic month costs $3,000 in Paddle fees and roughly $2,520 on Scale, plan fee and payout charges included.
The 1.5% that moves the finish line
Internationally, the entry tiers reverse. A $49 subscription renewal from abroad costs $2.95 on Paddle, $3.69 on Polar Starter, and $3.00 on Polar Pro, which still owes its monthly fee. Pro only underprices Paddle on international charges below a $33 item price, where its smaller fixed fee outweighs the 0.3-point rate deficit. Growth stays under Paddle up to about a $150 price, and Scale at any price. But at a $50 average order, Growth’s 10¢-per-sale edge is thinner than Polar’s own 0.25% payout fee, so a fully international catalog never actually recovers the $100 plan cost unless Paddle’s currency margin also enters the picture.
A $5,000 month, run twice
Take 100 sales at $50 from a US-based seller. With every sale domestic, Paddle takes $300 (6.0% effective), Polar Starter takes $300 at checkout plus about $14 in payout fees, and Polar Pro totals $264 all-in, $36 under Paddle. Now make all 100 sales international. Paddle still takes $300 at checkout, but if buyers paid in local currencies, its 1.5-3% conversion margin claims another $70-140 at payout, for $370-440 total, while Polar Pro lands at $339. The international winner is decided on the payout leg, not at checkout. Local-currency revenue favors Pro, USD-priced international sales favor Paddle.
Disputes, price floors, and track records
Three non-rate differences round out the choice. Paddle charges nothing for chargebacks and absorbs the liability, while Polar charges $15 each. Paddle won’t sell items under $10 without a sales conversation. Polar has no floor. And the companies differ in kind. Paddle has operated as a merchant of record for over a decade, while Polar is the open-source entrant whose platform code is publicly readable, and whose pricing, one repricing old, has already made every pre-May-2026 comparison of these two obsolete.
Verdict
A business selling mostly to US customers should climb Polar’s plans as it grows. Pro undercuts Paddle from roughly $1,400-1,700 a month in sales, Growth from about $7,000, and Scale from about $23,000, with savings compounding above each threshold. A business selling mostly abroad should lean Paddle. The 1.5% international surcharge erases most of Polar’s rate advantage (a $49 international renewal costs $2.95 on Paddle against $3.00 on Polar Pro before Pro’s monthly fee), although Paddle’s own FX margin on non-USD payouts can flip that back for local-currency sales. Paddle also suits anyone who values $0 disputes and ten-plus years of MoR operating history. Polar suits products priced under $10, which Paddle won’t sell self-serve, and teams that want an open-source platform they can read. Both file your taxes either way, so this one genuinely comes down to arithmetic.What’s the best alternative?
Polar.sh and Paddle aren’t the only two options for this kind of selling. Kelviq, a newer merchant of record, charges 3.5% + 40¢ per sale with no monthly fee (2.9% + 40¢ on your first $5,000). On a $100 domestic sale that works out to $3.90, next to $5.50 on Polar.sh and $5.50 on Paddle, and the fee includes usage metering and entitlements that SaaS and AI products otherwise build separately. Run your own numbers in the Kelviq fee calculator, or see the direct matchups in Kelviq vs Polar.sh and Kelviq vs Paddle.